Decent hotels around Lax would be Hilton, Westin, Crowne Plaza. Sheraton is apparently not that bad, although someone on the reservation needs to be over 21 to access any Sheraton hotels around LAX.

But by all means just use Priceline and their online bidding thing. I actually booked my LAX hotel's today, and put a bid of $47USD on 3.5star hotel, in which there is only three of them, and got me the Crowne Plaza for $73 after tax/exhange rate etc..

Or if you are into the 2 star stuff, plenty of them around the area going pretty cheap.